Party on Garth

Canada, yup Canada. Thousands of miles traveled. Four and a half months of climbing, blisters, illness, joint pain, and walking (so much walking) and here I was...where I promptly left the damn country in less than 24 hours. Wait what?

Yeah the ending of this journey really turned out to be rather anticlimactic. Honestly somehow I seemed to take a page from Monty Python's Holy Grail. But before I get into that, let's step back to Staheken. First of all a little side note: I am positive I have spelt every town in Washington incorrectly. More importantly I don't care. So if you care...tough.

In retrospect I think a more apt name for me on this trail would have been Space Cadet. The amount of crap I have forgotten, lost, or almost lost is astounding and Staheken was no exception. What seems to happen to me every time I go into town is I break my routine. When I break my routine I use items but don't put them away right after use. For example I put my phone on the charger in the bathroom and then packed my bag...then walked to the bakery two miles away, got on the shuttle up to the trail head an hour from the bakery and remembered my phone was on the charger only when a fellow passenger asked me the question, "how do you keep that charged (referring to my ipod)?" and I responded, "OH F$*K!!!" For the word "charged" released a flood of memories that reminded me of that routine I broke when I charged my phone. Luckily the driver of the shuttle was super awesome and grabbed my phone for me when he went back and brought it back to me on the next run. So all in all I was just delayed three hours, definitely could have been worse.

This leg of my journey was a special one. My party of seven (Fairway, Malarkey, John Wane, Analog, Texas Chill, Gourmet and myself) hiked nice and slow to enjoy our last bit on trail and to finish with other hikers. For all of Washington the weather has been phenomenal, hell for this whole trip it was AMAZING. I was "weathered" upon only five times the whole trail. I say weathered because it was not only rain, I was hailed and snowed on. and only twice did the weather come down when I was hiking. Washington is known for its crappy wet weather and all I had seen was beautiful sunny days. PCT class of 2012 was spoiled rotten this year and I am the last one to complain. Well before I keep going I do have to admit the fifth and final time I got weather was the second to last day on trail. A front blew in and we got a little taste of the fall weather to come. 30 degrees F windy, snowy, and you can't feel your feet. Long story short, hurray for finishing before October!

When hiking, as I have mentioned before, you get to think...a lot. One thing in particular I thought about was what it would look like when I reached the monument in Canada. The thing I had been pushing for all this time on the PCT. Well in Staheken I packed out a bottle of champagne (and by champagne I mean Cook's extra dry Brute. Classy I know.) because I wanted to pop the cork and have a proper cheers in Canada. This thought filled my mind for many miles, how it would look, what would we all cheers? Well as often happens on this trail, things end differently than expected. Instead of a happy we all made it cheers in Canada, one of our number broke his ankle four miles from the end. Four miles! weak sauce! The worst part this hiker (Gourmet) has been working on this goal for many years. I feel that out of all of us finishing that day, he was the one who wanted it most and this happened.

Well we couldn't leave him there alone (Fairway, John Wane and I, everyone else was ahead) So on my last day of the PCT I sat on the trail for four hours waiting for the damn helicopter to come and pick up Gourmet. Four hours....really!?! I felt really bad for him and we all did our best to comfort him. In my opinion at four miles, the monument is just a technicality and if he want photos it becomes a day hike in Canada when his ankle isn't busted. But as I said, this was crushing for Gourmet and it really sucked. I am still trying to find a way to contact him. Like a fool, I forgot to grab his info when I left and I am not sure how he is. But we didn't leave until we were sure the copter saw us and that Gourmet was in safe hands. Well that four hour delay started a chain reaction.

Because of the ankle Fairway, John Wane and I didn't get to Manning Park, BC until past 8:00pm. Well that's when the restaurant closes. That meant that the six of us remaining didn't get to have a proper final meal to celebrate. Also the restaurant didn't open until 11:00am the next day and that is the time the bus for Vancouver comes, so no proper breakfast either. So we made a plan B: spend the night in Vancouver before Fairway catches his flight to Georgia and have a proper sendoff there. Well as it turns out, the hostel we were planning to stay in was full...soooo plan C: eat at McDonald's (weak) because it is in the train station, say bye to Fairway, and the rest of us go to Seattle, stay at that hostel and have the proper meal...nope. Analog and Texas Chill bounced right off the bus in Seattle which meant Malarkey, John Wane and I were left to celebrate in what turned out to be a pretty awesome Chinese joint near the hostel. In summation, because of a broken ankle what was suppose to be a ritualized ending to our journey became a huge mess. Bummer.

I am not disappointed, nor mad, for that is how it works on the trail and you just have to accept that. I did get to pop my cork at the monument, I hiked with some truly amazing people and I hope that all my friend of old are able to reach Canada and feel the same elation I felt. This journey was everything I hoped for and so much more and no matter how it ended I doubt it would have felt like it was enough for all the work we hikers put into making it happen.

Well for the last time as Bladder Pillow I say adieu. Stay posted for when Caboose is on the loose in the future somewhere new and exciting...and my final Trail Thoughts that I am going to write very shortly.